“If we see this lawlessness starting in eastern regions, if the people ask us for help – in addition to a plea from a legitimate president, which we already have – then we reserve the right to use all the means we possess to protect those citizens,” he said.

“And we consider it quite legitimate,” he stressed. It’s the right thing to do.

“We are not going to a war against the Ukrainian people. I want you to understand it unambiguously.”

“If we do take a decision, it would only be to protect Ukrainian citizens. Let anybody in the military dare, and they’d be shooting their own people, who would stand up in front of us.”

“Shoot at women and children. I’d like to see anyone try and order such a thing in Ukraine.”

Moscow acted responsibly, he stressed. It acted legitimately. No international laws were breached. Claims otherwise are false. They’re irresponsible.

At the same time, he pointed fingers the right way. Washington illegitimately uses military force repeatedly, he stressed.

“When I ask them: ‘Do you believe you do everything legitimately,’ they say ‘Yes.’ “

“And I have to remind them about the US actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, where they acted either without any UN Security Council mandate or through perverting a mandate, as was the case in Libya,” he explained.

“Our partners, especially in the United States, always clearly and formulate for themselves their geopolitical and national interests, pursue them relentlessly, and then drag the rest of the world in, using the principle ‘You are either with us or against us.”

“We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero, but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves, he stressed.

“We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner.”

“We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency, and leave the US market.”

Putin called Western threatened sanctions and other harsh measures counterproductive. Consequences cut both ways.

He wants normalized relations with Ukraine. He has no legitimate counterpart in Kiev.

Resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine shows Kiev has no mandate to govern.

“We have suspended upcoming bilateral trade and investment engagement with the government of Russia that were part of a move toward deeper commercial and trade ties,” he said.

On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby announced a hold on US/Russia “military engagements.” They include joint exercises and port visits.

An anonymous White House source said administration officials could “reinforce that the Russians still have an opportunity to take immediate steps to de-escalate the situation or they face further political and economic repercussions from the international community.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington “has a broad range of option available” against Russia should things escalate.

Previous articles said Obama’s planned direct intervention in Syria wasn’t cancelled. It was postponed. On March 4, Voice of Russia said:

“President Barack Obama officially asked the Congress for permission to conduct a military operation in Syria.”

On February 25, Press TV headlined “US planning for cyber attacks on Syria.” Days earlier, Obama’s National Security Council (NSC) met.

It explored what an unnamed US official called “old and new optionsâ€¦It would essentially turn the lights out for Assad.”

Had the facility gone online infected, Iran’s entire electrical power grid could have been shut down.

More powerful tools are being developed. All US enemies are vulnerable.

The Atlantic Council is NATO-linked. It’s headquartered in Washington. It supports Washington’s global agenda. Past and current members include a rogue’s gallery of reliable American imperial supporters.

They include Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, James Schlesinger, James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Jones, Condoleezza Rice, Richard Holbrooke, Susan Rice, an array of current and former top military officials, and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Jason Healy heads the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. He claims cyberoperations can be humanitarian. How he didn’t explain.

He said Washington was “caught using Stuxnet to conduct a covert cybercampaign against Iran, as well as trawling the Internet with the massive Prism collection operation.”

“The world is increasingly seeing US cyberpower as a force for evil in the world,” he added.

He claims attacking Syria this way “might help to reverse this view.” Again he didn’t explain further. Doing so covertly would be hard to keep secret.

It’s unclear what Obama plans. Maybe he has cyber and military attacks in mind. No further information is available at this time.

Obama opened a can of worms in Ukraine. He’s got his hands full. Russia can respond in kind to whatever he may have in mind.

A rogue’s gallery of US-supported fascist extremists usurped power in Kiev. Putin knows what he’s up against. He won’t roll over for Obama. He’s too resolute to back down. The stakes are too high to do so.

“We proceed from the assumption that any collaboration – and the one between defense departments in particular – can only be based on the principles of mutuality and strictest parity, because this approach is the only one assuring the absence of winners and losers,” he said.

Doing so “under pressure…will be taken negatively not only” internally but worldwide, he stressed.

“The damage from that will be catastrophic.” Principles aren’t to be bargained away, he added. Nor lives of Russian nationals.

At the same time, Russia’s Foreign Ministry called threats of US sanctions unacceptable.

“By ignoring any attempts to study difficult processes in the Ukrainian society and to assess the situation, which continues to deteriorate after radicals seized power in Kiev by force, the US Secretary of State uses the Cold War cliches and proposes to punish the Russian Federation and not who committed a coup d’etat,” it said.

Moscow’s position remains clear, open and consistent.

“If Ukraine is only a territory of geopolitical games for certain Western politicians, this is the brotherly country for us,” the statement added.